Ash Wednesday, Year C

Julie Kae Sigars

Is this home?

One of my students is singing “Home” from Beauty and the Beast. She has trouble getting through the song. She, along with a couple other of my students, are having “home issues:” roommates, not feeling safe, secure, not sure where they should or could be…all while trying to figure out WHO they should or could be…

Life is complicated.

And many times, we hope that we are created for more than simply getting by…

Here we are….again. Ash Wednesday. Didn’t we resolve last year, and the year before, and the year before….to give it another go? Do the right thing? Be the right thing?

And here comes Ash Wednesday to somehow tell us, we didn’t get it right.
 
We are anxious. Tired, Weary. In need of home, need of shelter, in need of security, restoration, welcome, and a safe place to celebrate. Is that too much to ask? And many times, deep within us, we hear, yes, it is too much to ask. We do not deserve it.
 
But this I know, if I know anything at all: The Holy One does not think of it in that way. We are loved. We are beloved. If anything, there is a deep desire for us, all of us, to know this. We are beloved.
 
So what about this? This time around, we mark this season by being penitent about the way we beat ourselves up. We will be sorry for the way we hang on to our brokenness, we try to be sorry for not opening ourselves to our true selves. With as much truth as we can bear…. we will practice love of our own wild and amazing lives.
 
We saw some of this last Sunday, when many of our siblings in the United Methodist church, arrived on Sunday morning, and said, we are not going to beg the church to love us anymore. We know who we are, the beloved children of God.  One man sang: Whatever you say about me, this I know. I am a child of God. Then the church sang: Whatever the church says about you, this we know: You are a child of God.
 
As we gather in our own homes, safe, secure, in our own places of prayer, we can be thankful for the one who calls us, our own peculiar and quirky selves, knowing that we will be guided continually by the one who will satisfy our needs in parched places, that we will be watered by  a never-ending spring of water, growing into our full beautiful loving selves.
 
And as we journey toward healing, we can bring our light to the world, to loose the bonds of injustice and break every yoke. To share bread and clothing and homes…
 
As we receive ashes, they are not a mark of our failures, but a mark of our oneness with the earth and all creation, we live, we love, we are loved, and we become one with all, dust and stardust.
 
 
Is this home? Our hearts are restless for God. May we find peace and healing in this home, as the beloved ones of the Holy One, Holy Three.